Quiz Rules/Format(Same as last year, feel free to skip to the quiz if you know the rules already)

Your Task: Name the mystery Artist, ideally with as few clues as possible.

Correctly guess the artist on the first clue? 500 points.

After scrolling down to the second clue? 400 points.

Still don’t know after the fifth clue? 0 points, but a crisp high-five for participating.

I’ll use google translate to put the correct answer at the bottom in Arabic (if you read Arabic, that’s fantastic, but no cheating by reading ahead!) and you can translate it back to the language of your choice to confirm your answer.

In the comments, please enter your POINTS earned (not the artist name) and I’ll keep track of the running totals in a spreadsheet.

In addition to eternal bragging rights, the winner at the end of the year may even get something as prestigious as a digital certificate.

Here goes!

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Artist of the Week #7
Record POINTS Earned (Not Artist Name) in the comments(scroll down for additional clues)

For:

500 points………………..This American band’s name is a one-word toponym (a place name); though when they formed in 1967, their original name also name-checked that city’s public transportation providers

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400 points……………….Sports teams from the band’s hometown include the Blackhawks, the Bulls, and Da Bears

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300 points…………………The band shares their name with a 2002 musical featuring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere

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200 points…………………The band’s namesake is the most populated city in the American Midwest, also known as “The Windy City”

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100 points………………..The artist is C_________

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Answer: شيكاغو

(Please post your points earned in the comments section)

Thanks for playing!

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Verbalize the Positive

I enjoy that their album on the 1001 (and original band name) celebrates the city’s bus & train operators!

Quiz Rules/Format(Same as last year, feel free to skip to the quiz if you know the rules already)

Your Task: Name the mystery Artist, ideally with as few clues as possible.

Correctly guess the artist on the first clue? 500 points.

After scrolling down to the second clue? 400 points.

Still don’t know after the fifth clue? 0 points, but a crisp high-five for participating.

I’ll use google translate to put the correct answer at the bottom in Arabic (if you read Arabic, that’s fantastic, but no cheating by reading ahead!) and you can translate it back to the language of your choice to confirm your answer.

In the comments, please enter your POINTS earned (not the artist name) and I’ll keep track of the running totals in a spreadsheet.

In addition to eternal bragging rights, the winner at the end of the year may even get something as prestigious as a digital certificate.

Here goes!

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Artist of the Week #6
Record POINTS Earned (Not Artist Name) in the comments(scroll down for additional clues)

For:

500 points………………..Though some may forget he was born in Newark in 1941, there are 500,000 fans that are unlikely to forget his performance in “The Concert” at a park 14 miles east of there in September 1981

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400 points……………….He has three of his own albums on the 1001 list, in addition to a trio of albums with a partner (whom the barenaked ladies once suggested they would purchase, if they had $1,000,000)

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300 points…………………Earlier this week, he announced that he would be setting out on a farewell tour, fittingly titled “Homeward Bound”

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200 points……………His frequent folk rock duo partner’s name is Art

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100 points………………..The artist is P____ S________

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Answer: القاتل

(Please post your points earned in the comments section)

Thanks for playing!

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Verbalize the Positive

Kudos to the world wide web – I remembered there was a movie (but had no recollection of the name) in the 90s where the actor from Weekend at Bernie’s was convinced that in order to be his one true love, his eventual spouse needed to have been in the crowd at “The Concert” in 1981.

And with only that information, the www impressively came up with the film: Two Guys Talkin’ About Girls!

Unfortunately, I may need to modify this package; when I put the locations into Bing Maps, it displayed the message “The route distance is too long to calculate a route.”

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Alternatively, and more attainable in terms of logistics, perhaps there’s a market for the Go-Betweens/Vanilla Ice/Eric Clapton ‘Street Address’ vacation, passing by:

– 16 Lovers Lane (wherever such a street address can be found, ideally one in Florida)

– “A1A/Beachfront Avenue!” (a coastal highway in Miami)

– 461 Ocean Boulevard

And conveniently for my travelers, it appears that north of Miami, in the town of Golden Beach, ‘Ocean Boulevard’ is what the ‘A1A’ state road is called.

Who knew Vanilla Ice & Eric Clapton had such similar taste in streets?!

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If the side-venture-tour-guide-operator-scheme gets off the ground, chances are, Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard will get a lot more airtime than Ice’s To The Extreme.

Even though I still know all the words to Ice, Ice, Baby (and I will inevitably irritate my paying passengers by singing all those words on any & all bus tours along A1A/Beachfront Avenue), To The Extreme doesn’t have nearly enough Eric Clapton guitar.

Now normally, I’m adamant that a successful record boils down to songwriting, the songs will make/break an album.

Curiously, I didn’t find that was the case with 461.

The tunes are mostly subdued; on their own, I can’t see the songs repelling or attracting the masses.

However, the slide guitar.

The slide guitar!

I could listen to Slowhand slide all day.

Or all the way down the A1A.

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Verbalize the Positive

His solo on the acoustic version of Layla would be in my all-time Top 5 solos!

I recently learned that it was actually a cover, originally written and performed by The Only Ones.

And after listening to the debut album by The Only Ones, it’s clear that they were an influence on Pete Doherty & co.

The question is, how does the influencer (The Only Ones) compare to the group that they influenced?

Or to make up a word for the purpose of this post, the influencee (The Libertines)?

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In this case, if viewed objectively, it’s possible that Scenario 1 (The Libertines pale in comparison to The Only Ones) might apply.

But for me, given that The Libertines (and off-shoots Babyshambles/Dirty Pretty Things for that matter) are among my favourite bands of the 2000s, I don’t see it.

However, I’m also not so hopelessly devoted to any of those groups (nor in any sort of denial about the quality of this record) to say that The Only Ones has/have no business being in the same conversation.

Thus making Scenario 3 (The Libertines outplay The Only Ones) equally implausible.

Which means, by process of elimination, the most likely explanation is that the influencer and the influencee are approximate musical equals.

And I imagine neither group would be too disappointed by that outcome.

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Verbalize the Positive

Cheers to Steve for the Deaf for reminding me of the tune & teaching me about its origins!

Quiz Rules/Format(Same as last year, feel free to skip to the quiz if you know the rules already)

Your Task: Name the mystery Artist, ideally with as few clues as possible.

Correctly guess the artist on the first clue? 500 points.

After scrolling down to the second clue? 400 points.

Still don’t know after the fifth clue? 0 points, but a crisp high-five for participating.

I’ll use google translate to put the correct answer at the bottom in Arabic (if you read Arabic, that’s fantastic, but no cheating by reading ahead!) and you can translate it back to the language of your choice to confirm your answer.

In the comments, please enter your POINTS earned (not the artist name) and I’ll keep track of the running totals in a spreadsheet.

In addition to eternal bragging rights, the winner at the end of the year may even get something as prestigious as a digital certificate.

Here goes!

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Artist of the Week #5
Record POINTS Earned (Not Artist Name) in the comments(scroll down for additional clues)

For:

500 points………………..Formed in Manchester in 1991, the original lineup of this band featured a pair of Pauls: Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs on guitar and Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan on bass

“Oh, Friar Tuck, it appears that I now have an outlaw for an in-law. Yes, not bad.”– King Richard (from the Disney animated film Robin Hood)

[Album 594/1001]

The above scene (overdubbed in Finnish no less!) is from my favourite Disney movie.

A couple of years after Disney released (the one-time-outlaw-eventual-in-law) Robin Hood, outlaw country singer Willie Nelson released his outlaw country concept album, Red Headed Stranger.

Now I’m not sure if Willie has married into my extended family (perhaps there’s a microscopic chance he married a cousin’s cousin’s cousin’s brother-in-law’s aunt…?); so I can’t be certain that I now officially have an outlaw for an in-law.

But the second part of the above quote is an understatement: Yes, not bad.

Not only is it not bad, The Red Headed Stranger is quite good.

And what makes me especially pleased about this discovery is that until recently, Willie wouldn’t have been my cuppa.

In fact, I wouldn’t have wanted to be seen associating with such country riff-raff, a genre that I perceived to be nowhere near the nobility of nineties rock!

Quiz Rules/Format(Same as last year, feel free to skip to the quiz if you know the rules already)

Your Task: Name the mystery Artist, ideally with as few clues as possible.

Correctly guess the artist on the first clue? 500 points.

After scrolling down to the second clue? 400 points.

Still don’t know after the fifth clue? 0 points, but a crisp high-five for participating.

I’ll use google translate to put the correct answer at the bottom in Arabic (if you read Arabic, that’s fantastic, but no cheating by reading ahead!) and you can translate it back to the language of your choice to confirm your answer.

In the comments, please enter your POINTS earned (not the artist name) and I’ll keep track of the running totals in a spreadsheet.

In addition to eternal bragging rights, the winner at the end of the year may even get something as prestigious as a digital certificate.

Here goes!

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Artist of the Week #4
Record POINTS Earned (Not Artist Name) in the comments(scroll down for additional clues)

For:

500 points………………..Originally from the musical, Chess, in 1987 this artist recorded a version of the ballad, I Know Him So Well, with her mother, Cissy

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400 points……………….Artist referenced/paraphrased by Jack Black in the film, School of Rock, “Gabe. I believe… That the children are the future. Now listen, you can teach them well, but buddy, you have got to let them lead the way.”

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300 points…………………This American solo artist also starred in a handful of films in the 90s, including Waiting To Exhale, The Preacher’s Wife, and…

The artist name may be unfamiliar at first glance but I imagine the terrific tune below might be a little more recognizable:

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Rather than being a group, it turns out that White Town is more of a one-person wonder, an ongoing solo project by Jyoti Prakash Mishra.

And while it is true that none of the other tracks on Women in Technology reached the commercial heights of Your Woman, it’s far from disposable.

At different times, especially on the tracks that feature guest vocalist Ann Pearson, I get anywhere from a late 80s Everything But The Girl vibe (Thursday at the Blue Note) to a late 90s Dido feel (Wanted).

Elsewhere on the album, White Town also released arguably the second best track from 1997 about music for a specific visual purpose (albeit a relatively niche category, Theme for an Early Evening American Sitcomwould be the silver medal to Radiohead’s Exit Music (for a Film)‘s gold).

Overall, perhaps Women in Technology is better described as a one-hit/several-good-tracks/nothing-overtly-filler wonder?